The Ties That Bind
by Syreene
Summary: A computer hacker in Neo-Tokyo finds out that the Matrix has many layers...
1. Default Chapter

Chicago, in the Corporate City-State of Yosho-Mitsu, yr. 2083  
  
"Yosho-Mitsu's Biologic R&D has been the first to perfect the cloning of a human fetus! Our stock has increased exponentially; therefore workers in section 123-A may have the rest of the day off with pay. In further news, the so-called Neo-Revolution continued with an attack on Arasaka Securities R&D headquarters today. Numerous workers were killed and their labs were destroyed. Arasaka's president has accused Yosho-Mitsu of involvement, but we have denied all charges. Now back to your regular program."  
  
I always thought those reporters looked like plastic dolls to me, or more like ventriloquist dummies, because something other than the Truth is stuck up their asses. It doesn't matter, though. People still huddle around the Tele-screens like bums around a fire. The more I look around this place, with the glowing signs and the ghost-like people, the more I remember that day. I mean, it's not everyday somebody comes along and says something that changes your whole life.  
  
I was hanging with a local group of poser punks (hey, I had nothing better to do), when this one calling himself Bruce comes over, trying to act like a martial arts hero. He wanted to show off his new muscle booster implants, so he activated them and started posing in different katas. To give him credit, he did look good. for about five minutes. Human Jiffy-Pop is not a pretty thing to watch, but it sure is funny.  
  
Anyway, as his friends are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, this old man that I mistook for a pile of garbage stirs next to me and says, "Just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should."  
  
This was the first time I've heard someone who didn't worship progress like a deity. Then again, I'm not one to preach. If you count my neural ware, cyber-eye, net equipment and chip ware, I'm as jacked as the next guy. I give the 'Purists' out there a lot of credit, but in today's day and age, it's nearly impossible to survive without sacrificing at least part of yourself to the metal.  
  
Who am I? My name is Styx, as in the ever-flowing river of Death. I had a real name once, but any who remember it have disappeared, died, or. anyway. If the situation comes up, I'll tell you about it. Otherwise, mind your own business. I am a modern day hacker-girl, jacking her mind into the virtual reality of the e-Universe. Imagine instead of firewalls and passwords, you might encounter walls of flame guarded by dogs from Hell. Everything is there if your imagination and technology can handle it in the Net, so you can imagine how hard it is to leave to come back to the joy that is my world.  
  
I don't believe in the possibility of life without technology anymore. We've had the techno-plague running through our veins for generations now. What we can try to do, though, is keep it in balance. Knowledge and the power it brings should be shared with the masses, not hoarded by the rich. I like to add a touch of creative guidance to that too, so I can keep the phrase "What the Hell were you thinking?" down to a minimum. For example, did you ever hear about the genetic plagues? No, not the ones they released in Iraq. Those were tailored for race. I'm talking about someone going into a crowded party, releasing the plague, and the only one it kills is you. Never heard of such a thing? Didn't think so. That's one of the reasons I'm here. I've been wandering around this planet for so long, it feels weird to finally have a cause. I've been doing jobs, collecting gear, making contacts, but none of it had a real purpose. Now when people ask me when I could care less about most of the human race, I can answer with "Because you gladly cut your own throats with the knife they sell you at 10 times the cost, because you're too bored to wait for the slaughter."  
  
Let's face it. Most people, if you tell them that the guillotine is "now new & improved, with 50% more, and if you buy one you get the second ½ off," there'll be a line around the block to see who can get their heads chopped off first. It's those that I couldn't care less about, because there's nothing anyone can do. That behavior has been ingrained in them for generations upon generations. I'm here for the ones who say," Wait a minute." I'm here to tell them that their "doctor recommended, celebrity endorsed, 'population de-intensifier'" is really a bottle of time-released poison gas. Believe me, if you open one of those in a busy room, there'll be a few less people in the crowd. If you don't want to believe me over some overpaid plastic model, that's your family's problem when they pick up the remains.  
  
Aaah, here it is. I swear she picks the most microscopic holes in the wall to meet in. If it weren't for the flickering 'Beer' sign, I'd have thought it was abandoned. As I walk into the bar, it reminds me of a trash dump, mounds of dirt and rags that were once people piled up at bars and tables. Ugh, it smells like one too. The bartender doesn't even look up from the T.V. he has in the corner. There in the back is my friend Skittles that I came here to meet. Usually she's all flash and color with her rainbow hair and tattoos, but tonight she's covered in rags like the rest of them.  
  
She's huddled there, her leg bouncing and her eyes constantly darting back and forth. The Glass must be getting to her. What's that? Glass is a psychotropic drug that makes you paranoid and conspiracy crazy, but it enhances your reaction time a great deal. She's one of my hacker buddies, so I've been trying to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't over do it. Besides, her conspiracy stories are fun on slow nights like these.  
  
"Sit down!" she hisses as I come up to her table. "You wouldn't believe the stuff that's going down in the Outback (abandoned areas of the Net)."  
  
"What is it this time, Skits?" I say as I sit with my back against the wall. "DNA tracers in our flu shots?"  
  
"Stay with it, Styx. They already admitted that one. I'm talking about today! Yosho-Mitsu is way beyond what they were talking about on the news. They're just now telling us things they've been doing for years! What they've got is fucking Nietchian Supermen, not little fetuses! I've seen them! She's so nervous that the table is starting to shake.  
  
"Come on, Skits. There are so many people with robotic arms, nanotech muscles, cyber-eyes and freaking cyber-cocks! How do you know that you didn't just see a tweaker?" I scold, trying to calm her down as well as ignore the shiver going down my spine.  
  
Skittles grabs my hand and stares into my eyes. I start, because I realize her eyes are clear and unaffected by Glass. The shivers come back with a vengeance.  
  
"I know what you're thinking, but this is for real! What I saw scared me straight. I've been enhanced by chemicals, and knew cyber-freaks who were practically robots, but this is different. These things shouldn't exist! They don't exist, but do!" I wince as her nails draw blood.  
  
"You're overloading, Skittles! De-tox before you draw attention," I say as I pry her hand off mine.  
  
"You don't understand!" She practically screams as she stands and leans over the table at me. "THEY KILLED STONE!"  
  
What? I'm still trying to register that my partner of three years, skilled in every form of combat and jacked to the hilt is dead, when the door opens to the bar. I look long enough to see two almost identical men in pressed suits and sunglasses enter.  
  
"And now they're after me." I hear as I turn back and see Skittles going through a passage in the floor (no wonder she wanted to meet here).  
  
"The HELL she's going to drop this bomb on me and leave," I mutter as I follow through the floor.  
  
Ugh. I thought the bar smelled bad! Sewers are not my hangouts of choice.  
  
"Skittles, what the fuck is going on? What do you mean he's dead?" I yell after her.  
  
"Will you shut up and just come on before they find us?" she answers.  
  
She leads me through a maze of smelly pipes, until all I can do is hold my nose and try not to look down. The smell finally starts to let up as she comes to a rusted ladder.  
  
"Let me go first," she says as she climbs up to a manhole and makes a series of knocks on it. It opens, and the laser sights focusing on her forehead make her look like she's changed religions. "Cut it out, asshole!" she mutters as she climbs up the ladder. "I've brought her."  
  
" What? You tell me my partner's dead, drag me through the sewers, and now you're going to ask me for favors?" I ask disbelievingly as I climb up the ladder. When my eyes adjust to the light, I realize the shit has just started to fly.  
  
*************************************************************  
  
The place is pretty plain. From the sounds of it, I think it's a back room of a holo-bar. Crates and cleaning equipment litter the room. The owner of the laser light sets down her gun and I manage to get a good look at the person Skittles led me to.  
  
"Oh, it's you," I mutter. "Should've known the one bitch I know colder than me would be in on this, Lysande."  
  
"You're lucky it's me, or you'll be dead a lot sooner than you planned." she says contemptuously as she runs a hand through her hair.  
  
Great. If you combine a top black-ops solider with an Asian dominatrix with a masochistic flair, you get Lysande. Yeah, she's good at what she does, but not someone you want to be buddy-buddy with.  
  
"I've managed fine on my own until today," I retort.  
  
"Thanks to us. Other than being born, what have you done now to bring the Wrath of God down on you?" Lysande asks as she turns and starts checking various weapons laid out on a table.  
  
"Very funny, Lizzie. I've done everything from jaywalking to assaulting the vice-president of a major pharmaceutical company. You guys seem to know more about this than I do. Who exactly is after me, anyway? How did Stone die? He was one of the tougher psycho-bastards I ever knew." I sit down on a crate and start rubbing my forehead. "This is all getting a bit much."  
  
"The fun's just getting started," Skittles says as she goes to check the door. "I got her here, Lizzie. You can tell her the rest. I've got to get a drink." She steps out and Lysande heaves a sigh as she sets down her repeating shotgun.  
  
"What? Why this ploy just to get me here? What's going on, Lizzie?" I ask, pulling my hair in frustration.  
  
"All right," Lysande says. I can tell you this much. The 'people' after you are called Agents, but you might know them as 'Mr. Johnson.'"  
  
"Yeah, I've been in groups working for them before. Why weren't they after me then?" I ask.  
  
"They didn't know who you really were then. Have you ever noticed how they all look the same?"  
  
"Two of them came into the bar we left. The same.wait a minute. Are these guys supposed to be the 'Supermen' that Skittles was ranting about?"  
  
"Yes.and no. Needless to say, they are incredibly powerful, and they have Arasaka and Yosho-Mitsu in their back pockets. Combine the companies personal vendettas with the Agents desire to get you, and you've just become 'persona non-grata.' That's where I come in; to save your ass." Explains Lysande.  
  
"Were they the ones who killed Stone?" I ask quietly.  
  
"Yes. He saved Skittle's life, and mine." Lysande says.  
  
And that was the end of that. We all know we're going to die sooner or later in this place. Stone was a warrior through and through. 'He saved our lives.' A fitting epitaph then; that's all we leave behind.  
  
I notice that the music has stopped and Lysande goes to check the door. Skittles comes through the door and is about to say something, when Lysande pushes past her.  
  
"I know. Follow me and try to look like one of the sheep."  
  
I huddle down and try to do my best impersonation of a Chinese fire drill. Everything is chaos, flashing strobe lights, water, smoke, and people screaming and pushing towards the exits.  
  
"This way!" Lysande screams in my ear and pulls me towards the kitchen. We pass Skittles crouched behind the bar as she's pulling the pin out of a grenade. Four of the Arasaka shock troops with their black leather and custom weapons spot us and try to push through the crowd.  
  
Lysande leads the way through the kitchen till we get to a lid in the floor.  
  
"Aw, come on," I moan. "Not the sewer again!"  
  
"Shut up and move!"  
  
An explosion shakes the wall as Skittles comes running into the kitchen followed by heavy gunfire. I hate the sewer, but I hate serious injury even more.  
  
"Here goes nothing," I say and jump, expecting the worst.  
  
**CLANG**  
  
I didn't expect this. I never thought the old subway tunnels were still accessible. Lysande and Skittles are running up ahead along the subway tunnels.  
  
"I'm starting to feel like a rat," I joke sarcastically as I manage to catch up to them. "Where are we going?"  
  
"No where," Lysande says as we pull up to an embarking platform. "Skittles is injured, so you're going to treat her while I call for a ride and check our tail." She then runs back down the tunnel.  
  
"I gotta remember about broken glass the next time I hide behind a bar," mutters Skittles as I slap a stim on her and try to pick out the shards of glass in her back.  
  
"Hey, how about remembering why you got me into all this?" I ask, while pulling a little too hard.  
  
"Shit!! Look, Styx, I'm just the messenger here. If you want answers, wait for our ride." She groans.  
  
"I'm getting tired of this, Skits." I sigh as I finish treating her wounds. "Was all that before just bullshit to get me here? Supermen and conspiracies. come on! Why should I go with you guys, instead of back on the street where I belong?"  
  
"Look," Skittles whispers as she looks down the tunnel and reaches for something in her boot. "I can't let Lysande know about this, but he gave me something to give to you." She turns around and holds out her hand.  
  
I look at what's in her hand and my world turns to black. 


	2. Chapter 2

Remember when I said that if my past came up, I'd tell you about it? Guess what. I lived in one of the corporate run cities back then with my father, my mother, and my twin brother, Alex. Dad was a pharmaceutical engineer, while Mom stayed home. Alex and I were both labeled 'gifted troublemakers,' and didn't stay in school long. We spent most of our times with machines, and created our own hacker board by the time we were six. Dad's work was all that mattered to him, and Mom's pill bottle was all that mattered to her. That suited us fine, because all we needed was each other. We were two sides of the same coin, finishing each other's thoughts, and complimenting each other's skills.  
  
One day Alex came up to me with two bracelets. One looked like two white snakes swallowing each other's tails, and the other was the same, but black. "Watch this," he said with a gleam in his eye as he pulled the bracelets apart. "You can combine them to form another bracelet, one snake white, the other black. Just like us. We function apart, but we form something wonderful when we come together. Never forget that." And he handed me the black snake bracelet.  
  
Things were fine as long as we had each other, but that all changed when Dad got in trouble. In the last few days, we could tell something was wrong. He was looking stressed, talked to himself a lot, and hardly came out of his lab at all. Alex, as compassionate as he was devious, decided we should hack into his computer with our board and try to find out what's going on. We didn't get very far before Dad caught us (hey, I was ten). Dad was screaming at us that we didn't know what kind of trouble he and the whole family was in if he didn't get this done, and why don't we act like normal kids, but that was the usual. It's when he called the cops on ME that I knew I'd never forgive him. He said it was for my own protection, but I didn't care. He was taking me away from Alex, from my soul. Little did I know for how long.  
  
I was let out a week later on my own recognizance, and when I got home I saw what had happened. Our home was a disaster. The walls were bullet ridden and fire damaged, and doors and windows were broken open. I ran into the house and tripped over my mother in the kitchen. It looked like she was trying to crawl to the backdoor, but didn't make it. I found my father's body in his lab, draped over the remnants of his work. Fitting, since it meant the most to him. I screamed for Alex and searched through the whole house, but I could find nothing. I tried running to the cops, looking for anyone who saw anything, but all I could get was that my father was running with the wrong crowd and we paid the price. I died inside that day, and that's where Styx, the river of Death, began to flow.  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
"Styx, come on! Shake it off!" I hear from a distance. Everything's a blur of color as I start to focus on Skittle's hair. "Lizzie's coming, so pull it together." She tells me as she helps me to my feet. I put the white snake piece in my pocket. Alex. I hear the sounds of quick footsteps and pull my Uzi up, but it's Lysande. She gives me a hard stare and says, "Ride's coming. Are we green?"  
  
"Green as a jealous frog," Skittles says as she pulls her poncho back on.  
  
"Are you still coming?" Lysande says to me.  
  
"I've been going down this road for 13 years now. No way I'm stopping now."  
  
"Good. I'd hate to have to kill you." She says as the subway car pulls around the corner.  
  
I hope that was the trace of a smile I saw on her face. I wouldn't want to fight her one-on-one. The door slides open to the subway car, and they both walk in. I'm about to when I hesitate. What if it's not him? Could I stand it again? As I'm debating, Skittles leans out and grabs my hand. "He's waiting." Oh, God. Alex! As I step into the subway car, I can feel the energy change, like this is a place totally different from the rest of the world.  
  
Lysande takes my arm and says, "Come on, let me introduce you to some of the group."  
  
She leads me past a mass of wires, monitors, phone lines, hacker boards, and some things I've never seen before. " That's all Skittle's work, you know." Lysande says.  
  
"Don't bullshit her, Lizzie." Skittles says as she makes her way to what looks like a medical area. "He helped me with a lot of it."  
  
A redhead wearing bright red sports gear with 'Romov Kings' down one side comes up to us as Skittles removes her poncho and sits on a cot.  
  
"Damn, girl. Trying that bed of nails trick again?" she says jokingly as she examines Skittle's back.  
  
"Strider, this is Styx. Strider's our medical personnel." Says Lysande.  
  
"Nice to meet you," she says with a smile," but hopefully we won't see each other that often."  
  
"Did the boss man finally come?" asks Lysande as she stows her weapons in a wall locker.  
  
"Nah. Nobody's been able to talk to him for a while. Just the guys and me. Are the rest of you all right?" asks Strider.  
  
"Nothing major." Lysande says. "Come on, Styx. It's time." She leads me to the connector door to another car. My heart's beating in my ears as I grip the bracelet piece in my pocket and follow.  
  
The rear car looks like a technician's paradise. Tools, workbenches, and pieces of electronics and cellular phones are strewn about. A man with shoulder length black hair and wearing protective goggles is sitting at one of the benches and working with a soldering iron.  
  
"Hey dogface!" Lysande yells. He looks up from the table for a moment, swallows hard, and promptly drops the soldering iron on the table of electronics. "Shit!" he says as he frantically tries to save what he was working on. I can't help but smile. That's Alex all right.  
  
"I'll leave you two alone," says Lysande as she steps back through the  
connecting door.  
  
Staring at Alex as he's cleaning up his mess, I realize I don't know  
what to do! I've imagined this for years, what I would do and say, but  
now it's all-blank. As he stands up, I do the only thing I can think of.  
I hold out the piece of the snake bracelet. He reaches into his and pulls  
out the black half of the bracelet. I hear the gentle 'click' of the two  
pieces going together and then we're in each other's arms.  
  
"Brianna." he whispers into my hair, but I can barely hear it over my own sobs of joy.  
  
"You're here, you're real," I keep saying to myself, refusing to let this be a dream. Once I realize he's not going anywhere, I wipe my face and slug him as hard as I can.  
  
"God damn you!" I yell at him as he's rubbing his cheek. "You left me! You all left me! Mom, Dad, you. twelve years!! Twelve FUCKING years I've been alone, looking, not knowing." and then I break down again as he pulls me to his chest.  
  
"I know, Bri. I know. I've been looking for you too." He says.  
  
"Tell me what happened, then. Where have you been?"  
  
"It's really hard to explain," he says as he sits back down on the bench. "The next night after you went to jail, all Hell seemed to break loose. Father was panicking, trying to destroy all of his work at the house, when these men broke in. Mom threw me down into the cellar and locked the door, telling me not to make any noise. I hid under the stairs and cried, but I could still hear the gunshots." I sit down next to him and hold his hand tightly. " I huddled there with my eyes closed tight, when suddenly the noise stopped. I opened my eyes, and a man in black was there. He kneeled down in front of me and smiled, telling me he was going to help me. He even asked where you were. Noises started to come from upstairs again, and he told me I needed to come with him. I didn't want to leave without you, Bri, but I didn't know what to do. Mom and Dad were probably dead, you were gone." he lowers his head into his hands.  
  
"Twelve years, Alex?" I asked as I kneeled in front of him. "Why did it take twelve years to find me?"  
  
"That's where things get a little difficult," he says. 


End file.
